In chronological order:-
June 24: The Vertical Line was first discovered by a careful-minded person in the pre-production picture samples of the K-7: http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2009/06/bundle-of-new-full-size-k-7-sample-pics.html
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July 3: The Vertical Line was found by me (for the first time by anyone on the Internet who posted about the problem) in the *production* K-7 sample picture by a new Japanese K-7 user. As I predicted, it looked like a common bug and issue (although as usual I was bashed to death by some): http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2009/07/strange-line-in-image-of-k-7-appears.html
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July 9: The Vertical Line Bug reports continued: http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2009/07/strange-vertical-line-strikes.html
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July 11: A DPR user complained about the Vertical Line, which destroyed his originally should be very nice picture (plus terrible noise at ISO 400, too): http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&thread=32370822 via http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2009/07/adverse-user-reports-of-k-7-continue.html
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July 15: More and more new K-7 users found the Line and Bug Worldwide (this time reported by a German user): http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2009/07/k-7-strange-vertical-line-repeatedly.html
July 30: A Chinese K-7 user at Hong Kong has discovered lately that his K-7 has the same Vertical Line Bug, again his pictures are nice but there is a Vertical Line in some of them! Plus, noise are no good even at ISO 200 (see the background):-
http://www.dchome.net/viewthread.php?tid=732768&extra=page%3D1&page=1
(Post in Traditional Chinese)
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Of course, the new Firmware 1.01 won't help even for what he has tried. Who told and tells that the FW 1.01 has this (possibly hardware) bug fixed?? Have Hoya/Pentax yet admitted the problem and offered a solution so far???
See also this nice summary on actually the FW 1.01 won't help on the Vertical Line by this smart guy who posted at my Yahoo Pentax Discussion Group:-
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ricehigh_pentax/message/615
Obviously, the Firmware "update" is *Irrelevant*.
Well, when will Hoya/Pentax react to this real and annoying issue before it is too late for what it would destroy and hurt (1st hand sales, used market sales, users' sentiments, etc.). But one thing is for sure, if they don't find a remedy soonest, all the affected K-7 users or even potential buyers will be frustrated. And surely many potential K-7 buyers will withhold their purchasing plan.
This case is surely not isolated case as from what all we've learnt by now, possibly there are some design issues, and more possibly with the Samsung sensor and its associated hardware. The chance for poor Quality Control is still here but it is not that likely. And if the QC is as poor as that, this is yet again a very worrisome thing for Pentax/Hoya. Let's see if Pentax could come up with a new Firmware update which can *hide* the problem.